Kirill Marchenko's time with the Blue Jackets could be ending

Kirill Marchenko's future in Columbus got murkier Tuesday after Rick Bowness dropped a loaded line about who he actually wants in his locker room.

The comments came in a Q&A with The Athletic's Aaron Portzline, where Bowness was asked if the Zach Werenski, Adam Fantilli and Marchenko situations made for a messy summer.

Bowness waved that off. Werenski wants to stay, he said. Fantilli's going to sign. Simple stuff.

Then came the part that actually matters.

"For the rest, we're not different than other teams. The only guys you want on your team are the ones who want to be here."

He never named Marchenko directly. He didn't need to.

Bowness also said he's spoken with Werenski recently but hasn't really talked to Marchenko lately, beyond a brief exchange. He downplayed it as no big deal.

Don Waddell faces a deadline that changes everything today

That's a strange thing to downplay for a guy who just turned 26 and is coming off a 67-point season. Marchenko put up 27 goals and 40 assists in 76 games this year, with 8 points over his last 10.

Werenski, by comparison, logged 81 points in 75 games and remains the clear priority. The gap in how Bowness talks about the two is not subtle.

Here's the real pressure point. Today, September 15, is the last day Columbus can offer an eight-year contract with bonus structures that favor the player.

Don Waddell has been steering this file like few GMs steer anything, and he knows exactly what that clock means.

So why let your coach say something like that in public on the one day it could scare off a deal? That's the part that doesn't add up.

Marchenko isn't rushing to sign long-term in Columbus. That much has been obvious for a while, and it's why the trade rumors keep refusing to die.

The Blue Jackets sit at 40-30-12 with 92 points, but they've dropped two straight and gone just 2-7-1 over their last 10 games. Bad timing for a distraction like this.

Bowness insists his end-of-season blowup with the media won't spill into the room. Maybe not. But a coach openly separating "guys who want to be here" from everyone else is its own kind of message.

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Whether Waddell pulls the trigger today because it helps the return, or lets it ride into the fall, is anyone's guess right now. Nobody in that building seems in a hurry to say.

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